Biyernes, Setyembre 30, 2016

Here's an excerpt of my Q & A last April with then presidential candidate
Rodrigo Duterte:
ME: Sir, are you not threatened by the pronouncements that the military and the
U.S will harm you?

MAYOR
DUTERTE: If God wants me to be there. If it’s destiny to be
assassinated…hangang diyan lang ako!

Confessed hired assassin Edgar Matobato. Photo Credit: PhilNews

ME:
They are apprehensive because they said when you become president it means good
bye to EDCA (Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement) and the military aid from
the U.S would stop…?
DUTERTE: Who?! Mga Amerikano?!
ME: I read that on the community page of the military at Face Book.

DUTERTE:
Let us see why? Are we dependent on the United States for our problem here?
Is the United States ready to die with us for us on the Spratly issue?
It we start war because talagang hinde na makapasok ang fishermen we are
deprived of a rich fishing ground, and we declare war, is America, is EDCA
useful to us? May pakinabang ba sila sa atin?

***

Lingayen
Mayor Josefina ”Iday” Castaneda told me her first class town losses P5 million
share from the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) while San Fabian Mayor
Constante Agbayani and Mangaldan Mayor Bona Fe D. Parayno answered my same poser
that they lost P3 million and P1.5 million, respectively.

It was
my friend Agbayani, whose natural demeanors amused me, who said that the
reduction of his IRA was blamed to “cadastral”, while the two lady mayors
nodded their heads when I told them the depletion were probably due to the
entry of the new towns in the country.

IRA,
that came from taxes collected by the BIR, is likened to a pie. It is divided
by recipients 81 provinces, 145 cities and 1,489 towns all over the
archipelago.

That’s
why brass of the League of Cities of the Philippines (LCP) have been rejoicing because new cities like
Baybay, Bogo, Catbalogan, Tandog, Lamitan, Borongan, Tayabas, Tabuk, Bayugan,
Batac, Mati, Guihulngan, Cabadbaran, El Salvador, Carcar, and Naga have been
reverted by the Supreme Court last
August this year to municipalities.

Inclusion
of these 16 cities means a loss of P40 to P100 million of IRA a year to each of the 122-
member LCP.